Peanut Butter

His first night home:


First bath:




Ladies and Gentlemen - this pit bull mix is a big baby.

I Love Earth Hour

Three tea candles on the top of the TV, one in the bathroom.

Our new dog sleeping in his crate behind us (he's sick).

Jifo watching SportsCenter with glazed fixation.

We skipped the Nehemiah Band concert (next time, I swear!!!) because I was too tired and headachey.

Me: blogging.

BEST HOUR EVER!

Last week's Simpsons about to come on DVR...(hey it's lights out, not TV off.)

Stay tuned for pics of our new 2-year-old baby.

Earth Hour 2009

Earth Hour is tomorrow: Saturday, March 28th from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Turn off your lights!

I admit, I was touched when I heard NPR list a few of the La La Land icons going dark for the hour, including the Santa Monica Pier Ferris wheel and the pylons at LAX. Several restaurants are serving by candle light.

At 6 p.m. in the Nokia Plaza, minor celebs, our increasingly unpopular mayor (who gave me and Selena quite a charming [some would argue sleazy, but I kind of like sleazy] greeting at my birthday dinner last year), and the DJ from the Ellen Show are going to be fete-ing it up. Localites, check it out, if you dare brave the downtown traffic (with no lights, are they crazy? :P)


At the international website, you can blog, tweet, or flickr during the event and they'll put it up on their site. Although I find that more than a little ironic, since computers use WAY more energy than lightbulbs...

Macaroon Porn

Ever since I discovered lavender macrons at Burdick's in Harvard Square a few years ago, I've loved interesting-flavored macaroons, macarons, or whatever your tongue wants to call these meringue pastries.

With flavors like Kiwi with Pear and Shiso, Kee's Chocolates in SoHo and Midtown takes the cookie (and puts buttercream in the middle).

Rosewater Lychee macaroon
from Kee's Chocolates

And it's Chinese female owned and crafted!

Day 26

Not the P. Diddy group - Lent.

I broke my facebook Lent last week to help publicize my novel in the publishing contest. In an interesting moment of synchronicity, two friends from years afore (so many years that I had to use old-timey language) happened to request friendship/respond to an old request of mine.

One was, in her words, married to a white man now (after being a sticky rice lesbian) (weren't we all?) and recently had a baby, the other had started a successful reggae/r&b group.

That was it, I thought, just signing on to do business and spread the word to these new friends, as well.

And I might as well contact the band manager to get tickets to The Nehemiah Band's gig on Saturday. (They've been my young boy crush since I first saw them at The Well a year ago. The lead singer and his first guitarist are ADORABLE.)

And then Selena posted photos of us from her birthday, so of course I had to check them out.

But the real test came today. One of the basses from my choir invited me to facebook (I have a private profile so I'm unsearchable unless you went to Harvard.) You know when you get a "join facebook" request, it shows you the other people who've sent you requests? Well my ex, H, sent one to my gmail address at some point (which in itself is a strange thing, being that we were facebook friends via our school addresses from the first day we started dating...), so he showed up in this bass's request. He had changed his profile picture and seeing his face (and new hair - or lack of) instantly sparked an urge to facebook stalk him. (Those who know our story know why this is particularly funny...)

This is when the Lent comes in handy - I can stem my "unholy urges" because I'm not allowed on, anyway.

Falling off the wagon, even for a good purpose, makes getting back on so much harder. That's my Day 26 lesson. No backsliding! Extremity of practice is much easier than cheating here and there. Same goes for diets, for anyone on one.

Happy Lenting.

Happy Birthday Selena

My best friend is old a sucker today! To see part of my gifts to her, visit our brand spanking new site...okay, newly debuted site dedicated to our Lesbromance and all the things that we're gay for (including each other).

I love you Selena.

Selena, you are my best friend.

My Novel Advanced In the Amazon Breakthrough Contest!

Something so big happened that I am actually unveiling my identity on 52 Faces to the public:

My novel, Mona Again, is a quarterfinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, which means it is up for consideration for a publishing contract with Penguin!

I need your help to push it through the next 2 rounds: visit the Mona Again website for details on submitting a 5-star customer review on Amazon. With enough support from the reading public, Publishers Weekly and Penguin editors can be convinced to publish this book!

This is my dream, my calling in life. Thank you for your support.

CLICK HERE: THE MONA AGAIN WEBSITE

Dog Frenzy: Our Foster Story

Jifo and I are taking the next step: we're going to become foster parents. For dogs.

It's been a harrowing, surprisingly long, and, at times, emotional journey these last few weeks. We reached out to three different rescue groups to varying responses. One of them seemed promising, but repeatedly either they or the dogs tied to them were not "as advertised." Today I found out that they had suddenly placed a dog into another home that we had promised to foster for them just last night, due to a lack of communication on their end.

I burst into tears and had a fight with Jifo and then wrote a very earnest (and probably emotional lol) email to them urging them to communicate better with us. It was a frustrating 1-2-3 exchange that also showed they may not be the right group for us to work with.

Just when I switched my gchat status to, "God doesn't want me to have a dog," I got a call from the Mercedes Benz of rescue groups.

Much Love has been around for years. They have a tight network of volunteers, fosters, trainers, vets, and doggie day care centers, plus generous amounts of food donated by Petco, Natural Balance and Precise Pet Foods.

I met them five or six years ago during my first stint in L.A. I would go to brunch at the Rose Cafe and, on my way back to my car, pass their booth in a parking lot in Venice. I ended up walking dogs for them right then and there.

I immediately felt good talking with them. The coordinator took her time explaining their process and we set up a home check (they're willing to drive all the way out to the boonies of suburban SoCal) for this weekend.

I hope it goes well and that we can get the ball rolling on having Dog in my life at last.

One Prayer Today

Oh thank you, God.

Thank you.

(reason why to come shortly...)

Virtual Teahouse Interview

Comic Book Man says, "Best blog tag ever."

Beth, host of Virtual Teahouse, interviewed me, and I mean, really interviewed. Not what NYLON or something else annoyingly hipster would ask, but the kind of interview like, God, would give. Someone interviewed her first, I read her post, then commented, asking to be interviewed. Below are her soul-deep questions and my answers.

Wanna play? Comment on the post asking to be interviewed and leave a link to your blog or some way to communicate with you. I will then dream up some questions with whatever info about you I can gain from your blog or other sources that you give me.

1. What’s the secondary gain you get from being chronically over-committed?

Since the primary gain is to feel wanted and to have the appearance of being busy or useful, the secondary gain (and the root of pretty much everything I do in life) is to prove to the Critical Voice/internalized image of my father that I am a worthy human being who isn't lazy and is, instead, deserving of his love. It is a way to say, "You see? I am hustling so hard that I make myself sick." Only when I fall ill does my father (both the real one and the one in my psyche) allow me to take a break. Anything short of illness is just laziness and a waste of time to him.

2. Love the phrase you used 'the soul’s call for its mother.’ It’s obviously a deep call from the well that we all fall into…the well of personality, adjusting to cultural norms, and addiction to___________. Can you tell us, 1 year out from writing about your call, what is the Witness to your soul’s quest saying about your journey at this point? What do you know, without a shadow of a doubt?

I've been meaning to write a 1-year recap of 52 Faces and Beth's question is a clear prompt in that direction.

Wow. I never thought of reviewing the lessons of my year by accessing the Witness, but it makes the task so much easier.

Witness says:

The one thing that has never changed is that my friends are my family. They are still the way God shows his(her) love for me.

Even when I thought I gave up, I never did. Every setback was a step in the journey and I cherish them (another surprise revelation) for their role.

Though a little wearier, a little less enthusiastic of the mourning I still have in me, a little older (only a little ;P), and a little more disappointed, I am still thankful. There is still a little daily gratitude in this weathered heart of mine.

3. What do you know with a shadow of a doubt?

I think my father loves me, even though I can't feel it right now and I haven't felt it since that one moment of clarity during his two hour verbal lashing two months ago. (And that so-called moment of clarity I now chalk up to my beaten-down Chinese side trying to make sense of her parents' painful criticism.)

Actually, come to think of it, it is the converse that is true. I know that my father will never accept me, is disappointed in me and disapproves of my life, all with a shadow of a doubt. There is some tiny spark, perhaps the hope I use to survive, that says he might actually love me, might actually accept me and might actually, in the end, just want me to be happy. But it is only a shadow voice in the darkness that says, "I have no true father."

4. If you had to, upon pain of death, tell us your spiritual quest in one sentence, what would it be?

To finally know that I am loved.

5. Tell us 3 amazing things about being Chinese-American.

The question gave me pause for a moment and then I realized it was because I haven't viewed "Chinese-American" as an appropriate term for my identity for many years now. I see myself as Chinese and American. Identity for bi- and multi-cultural people is a fractured paradox at best. Integration is only because one skin carries all these cultures, it is not truly quantifiable with a hyphen.

With that said, I'll answer for each identity:

3 Amazing Things About Being Chinese

• Being skinny. (You fat Chinese, don't bother protesting, I don't know why you turned out that way - you had the genes, man, and squandered it eating nasty ass American fast food!)
• Great skin.
• Bitchiness. (You know what I'm talking about. We Chinese looove gossiping and taking smack about anyone and everything and it's funnier than 11 gay guys in a room with martinis.)
  

3 Amazing Things About Being American:

• The power passport! Go anywhere, anytime, and better yet - leave before the local cops get you!
• Safety.
• Arrogance. Other countries get it. We're American.
  

BONUS QUESTION for the over-committed among us: do you feel like you have been fully initiated into womanhood? Do you know where home is?

WOMANHOOD
Many times. I feel I've been fully initiated into each step, beginning with experiencing adolescent betrayal from other pubescent girls, which opened my eyes to the way women will sell a sister down the river for just a glance from a boy who isn't even cute. I've been initiated into heartbreak, repeated and numbing with its pain, and that lesson all women learn (eventually) not to be with men who do not, cannot love them enough. I've been initiated into loving so hard you forgive, almost involuntarily.

And the sweetest initiation, which unfortunately did not come until the mid to late twenties, of sisterhood at last and the delicate balance it requires. Fortifying the bond to other women is the initiation I hope to experience over and over again.

HOME
Heck no! I thought it was where Selena is, and so I live with her now. But unfortunately she lives in L.A., where I could never feel at home, no matter how comfortable the living gets. (And it's mindnumbingly comfortable.) I thought it was New York, and it is, but every time I go, I run away to California again.

I thought at one time home would be wherever my husband was, that I would follow him everywhere. But I'm not married and likely won't be until my early or mid 30's at least, so we'll have to see.

Uber-Bonus question: Where in the world do you want to be working and loving in 5 years?

Straddled across two coasts like I am now: a high-rise apartment right on top of a subway line in NYC and a single-family house with a yard near the beach in southern California.

Let me know if you wish to do an interview. Here are the instructions:
1. Leave me a comment to this post saying, “Interview me” and give me a way to contact you.
2. I will respond by e-mailing you five questions or leaving them on your blog.
3. You update your blog with the answers to the questions. If you don't have a blog, I will post your answers on this one in the comments section, or maybe make you into a guest blogger!
4. Please include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions....and on we go!

Don't Tell Anyone

It's way too late and I'm still up and now I'm hungry argh and I should eat otherwise I may not sleep well. sigh.

I want to thank my followers, which have doubled in the last month or so. Join 'em!

and now the secret:

Don't tell anyone but...

I'm actually enjoying my life in L.A. now.

Happy Pi Day

Celebrate 3/14!

Pi Day

(photo courtesy of mathwithmrflisak)

Disappointment and the Paradox of Change

When did disappointment become such an unbearable emotion in human culture?

I have been faced with a steady stream of disappointment from everyone I've ever loved the most. My parents, the roots of the blighted tree that upholds my life, were abusive, selfish, critical people who were not loved enough as children themselves and were so damaged, they could not raise a child healthily. I escaped my sleepless, anxiety-filled childhood by going to college early, but the damage was already done.

I have never felt truly loved by my parents. They never gave me a core sense that I was precious for being alive. I had no value unless I was achieving something that would make them look good to society. The first time I felt I had done something right by my father was getting into Harvard, an accomplishment I still have no idea how I pulled off, but I do remember sleeping very little during my prime growing years. The next thing I did right was graduating form Harvard. Unfortunately, I've been nothing but a disappointment to him since and he has not hesitated in telling me this.

I dated many cold, unempathetic men who reinforced the idea that I wasn't lovable, that I didn't deserve to have my emotional needs met. I also had a few angels come into my life who loved me as best as they could and, inches at a time, healed me. Unfortunately, those were rare. It's much easier to find the former, particularly since I date Asian men nearly exclusively now, who, in California at least, seem riddled with either commitment or intimacy issues, unresolved resentment towards their fathers and a deep fear and mistrust of their mothers, whose image they cast, unconsciously and dangerously, onto me and their girlfriends. But this post isn't about the intimacy problems in the Asian culture; that I could devote a blog to.

This is about my journey towards accepting disappointment as a way of life. It's also an urging for Americans and Asians (the two cultures I know best) to stop using denial, addiction or other defensive measures to avoid disappointment or discount its existence.

It's the same idea as the message that is thankfully gaining momentum to stop coddling American children. The degree of overprotection is embarrassing for the parent and damaging to the child. Kids can't even eat peanut butter anymore without breaking out in hives, which, back in my day - a mere two decades ago, was unheard of. I played in the dirt with worms and caterpillars and I can eat anything. I'm not even lactose-intolerant.

Likewise, let your soul get a little dirt under its fingernails. You don't have to be an emo kid to know that pain can feel so good - just have a good cry and see how much lighter you feel afterward.

I was drawn to therapy and the arts because in the first, you could air your dirty laundry and in the second, you could charge admission for it.

I've never been good at handling disappointment. Developmentally, child psychology says that an infant has to have at least a sufficient level of attention, care and emotional containment in order to contain frustration adequately as an adult. Well that didn't happen. I have a biological mother who screams every 15 minutes like an alarm clock from hell. I have a father who can't talk about politics or me without raising the blood pressure of himself and everyone within earshot. I went to bed to their violently loud arguments every night. (And we wonder why I have sleeping problems.)

Frustration, disappointment and anger were not emotions that had adequate or healthy expression in my house, but they were emotions oft felt. Discovering Buddhist psychology over 4 years ago was my first respite from the torrent of negative emotions that consumed me.

The Paradox Of Change

Buddhism teaches acceptance of reality and the simultaneous recognition that the present is only temporary. It is only by accepting the present condition, can we see its transience. In turn, by seeing its transience do we allow it to move and to change.

In therapy grad school, they called it the "paradox of change." A therapist must never try to change the client, but must accept whatever feelings arise in the client. This is especially healing for people who were not allowed to express certain emotions growing up: for men it is commonly weakness, sadness or vulnerability; for women it is usually anger, sexuality or aggression.

Only through the compassionate acceptance of these "unacceptable" feelings - sometimes for the first time in a client's life - can the client begin to work through these emotions and eventually process and express them in healthier ways. In short, by not asking for a client to change, they will.

Be kind to your "bad" feelings. Make some space for them and for the feelings of others. Allow disappointment. Don't try to change it. Just know it will.

I Got Into NYU Journalism School!

YAAAAAAAY!

After three months of sitting slack-jawed and glassy-eyed in southern California, waiting for my fate, I finally got an email inviting me to the open house in April!

Strangely, the program forgot to call or email me first with an actual acceptance letter. sigh.

But who cares! I'm submitting my request for travel funds so I can get my newly-toned butt (all the recent dancing and gym-going is paying off) back home and check out the most expensive academic behemoth ever.

Since I was a child, I've always had a connection with NYU (yes I was one of those children who dreamed of college). At age 12, I imagined going to Tisch to be a musical theatre major, where I would spend my afternoons between class playing guitar in Washington Square Park for lunch money.

I got into the Dramatic Writing Program for undergrad, but I went to Harvard instead.

When I was looking into psychology graduate programs, I explored Drama Therapy at NYU, but ended up in that awful, racist, blackmailing hippie school in San Francisco instead.

Now, I know a ton about the other program I applied to, but nothing about NYU's News and Documentary program. Just that I get to make a documentary film about whatever I want as my master's thesis. Which is kind of awesome.

And that it's going to put me into so much debt my unborn dogs will owe money. Less awesome.

I'm going to go find my first meal with some bounce in my step now!

Overcommitted

I did it again.

Since I'm still waiting for employment, I decided to take some classes at the community college, which has more offerings than Harvard ever did, and in way cooler subjects (Broadcast Announcing anyone?)

Some classes quickly turned into a full schedule of 4 classes, two of which involved joining the large concert chorale and the world dance troupe that boasts a grueling rehearsal schedule and strict attendance rules.

On top of that, I joined the Harvard fiction writer's group and I'm still taking private voice lessons. I also applied for Jifo and me to be foster parents for shelter dogs. I'm also revising one of my novels for agent submission, one of my plays for festival submission, and finishing the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo last fall.

And I go to the gym. And yoga. And I read.

Is it no wonder that I haven't slept well in 3 weeks? I've been having nightmares about everything from dance class with my needlessly nazi teacher (she has issue with my black leotard because it has a pink trim. I'm sorry, I can't afford any more leotards, lady. I just wanna dance!) to being stuck in traffic to the damn rain that won't seem to let up in the normally parched and sunny southern California. I can't complain too much - these stress dreams have taken up the nocturnal head space usually occupied by nightmares about fighting with Jifo, so it's actually a mental vacation in a sad, sad way.

"This is how I got into Harvard," I said to Jifo. That's right: by filling up every hour of my life until I can't sleep well and have nightmares.

I had a chronic overcommitment problem rooted in a childhood of sleep deprivation and overscheduling by Chinese parents who wanted an overachieving child to show off. For the first 3 years in Hollywood after graduation, I could not say no to a single project. I was in 2 stage shows during pilot season one January (the actor's version of April for accountants), so hypoglycemic and stressed out that my hands shook.

It was a hard lesson to learn that I had to turn projects down. Sometimes the Universe had to step in and take me off a project with an injury.

I'm a little better at sleeping when I'm tired now, but only a little. Thus I find myself once again overcommitted and tossing fitfully in the night.

So tomorrow, dear readers, I will be dropping 2 of the classes so I can focus on my writing and job hunt. I will tell one of my former fellow dancers that I can't meet with her to go over steps to a show I will not be performing in any longer.

I will apply for some tutoring gigs. And I'll probably go to the gym or yoga class. And I need to restock my fridge. But that's it. I swear.

Anyone else doing any paring down? If so, any tips on how to streamline are appreciated by me and all readers!

Happy National Grammar Day!

The grammar of mine speaking is so real good!

As one who has worked as a professional editor, you know I'm all for this day!

Everybody get your copy of


I've been reading this to prepare for my journalism grad school entrance exam.

3+3 and NKOTB

Today, on 3/3, it is Jifo and my 3+3 month anniversary (okay, okay, we got back together).

I made reservations at the restaurant where he took me for our first date and when he picked me up, there were 6 roses on the passenger side seat. Underneath were

tickets to New Kids On the Block!

For an upcoming concert on his birthday, no less. My boyfriend, an adult heterosexual male over the age of 30, is willing to go to a New Kids reunion concert on his birthday. Nice.

"No Drama" Obama: The District

Newsweek's MTV satire, The District, is HIGH-larious. Catch all four episodes, starting with this one:



Sexy Obama-soundalike included!

Overheard: Christian and Fat - So My Type!

Me: I was telling [our 21-year-old roommate] that she'll know her type in her mid to late 20's. Yours is skinny, nerdy and white.

Selena nods

Me: And mine is Christian fundamentalists.

Selena: What?! No it's not!

Me: Okay, well it's definitely fat Asian guys.

Selena: (emphatically) Un-hunh.